Шпаргалка по "Стилистике"

6.Neutral, common literary and common colloquial vocabulary.

1.5. Stylistic neutrality and stylistic colouring

Speaking of the notion of style and stylistic colouring we cannot avoid the problem of the norm and neutrality and stylistic colouring in contrast to it.

Most scholars abroad and in this country giving definitions of style come to the conclusion that style may be defined as deviation from the lingual norm. It means that what is stylistically conspicuous, stylistically relevant or stylistically coloured is a departure from the norm of a given national language. (G. Leech, M. Riffaterre, M. Halliday, R. Jacobson and others).

There are authors who object to the use of the word "norm" for various reasons. Thus Y. M. Skrebnev argues that since we acknowledge the existence of a variety of sublanguages within a national language we should also acknowledge that each of them has a norm of its own. So the sentence "I haven't ever done anything" (or "I don't know anything") as juxtaposed to the sentence "I ain't never done nothing" ("I don't know nothing") is not the norm itself but merely conforms to the literary norm.

The second sentence ("I ain't never done nothing") most certainly deviates from the literary norm (from standard English) but if fully conforms to the requirements of the uncultivated part of the English speaking population who merely have their own conception

of the norm. So Skrebnev claims there are as many norms as there are sublanguages. Each language is subject to its own norm. To reject this would mean admitting abnormality of everything that is not neutral. Only ABC-books and texts for foreigners would be considered "normal". Everything that has style, everything that demonstrates peculiarities of whatever kind would be considered abnormal, including works by Dickens, Twain, О'Henry, Galsworthy and so on (47, pp. 21-22).

For all its challenging and defiant character this argument seems to contain a grain of truth and it does stand to reason that what we often call "the norm" in terms of stylistics would be more appropriate to call "neutrality".

Since style is the specificity of a sublanguage it is self-evident that non-specific units of it do not participate in the formation of its style; units belonging to all the sublanguages are stylistically neutral. Thus we observe an opposition of stylistically coloured specific elements to stylistically neutral non-specific elements.

The stylistic colouring is nothing but the knowledge where, in what particular type of communication, the unit in question is current. On hearing for instance the above-cited utterance "I don't know nothing" ("I ain't never done nothing") we compare it with what we know about standard and non-standard forms of English and this will permit us to pass judgement on what we have heard or read.

Professor Howard M. Mims of Cleveland State University did an accurate study of grammatical deviations found in American English that he terms vernacular (non-standard) variants (44). He made a list of 20 grammatical forms which he calls relatively common and some

of them are so frequent in every-day speech that you hardly register them as deviations from the norm, e.g. They ready to go instead of They are ready to go; Joyce has fifty cent in her bank account instead of Joyce has fifty cents in her bank account; My brother, he's a doctor instead of My brother is a doctor, He don't know nothing instead of He doesn't know anything.

The majority of the words are neutral. Stylistically coloured words-bookish, solemn, poetic, official or colloquial, rustic, dialectal, vulgar  -  have each a kind of label on them showing where the unit was "manufactured", where it generally belongs.

Within the stylistically coloured words there is another opposition between formal vocabulary and informal vocabulary.

These terms have many synonyms offered by different authors. Roman Jacobson described this opposition as casual and non-casual, other terminologies name them as bookish and colloquial or formal and informal, correct and common.

Stylistically coloured words are limited to specific conditions of communication. If you isolate a stylistically coloured word it will still preserve its label or "trade-mark" and have the flavour of poetic or artistic colouring.

You're sure to recognise words like decease, attire, decline (a proposal) as bookish and distinguish die, clothes, refuse as neutral while such units as snuff it, rags (togs), turn down will immediately strike you as colloquial or informal.

In surveying the units commonly called neutral can we assert that they only denote without connoting? That is not completely true.

If we take stylistically neutral words separately, we may call them neutral without doubt. But occasionally in a certain context, in a specific distribution one of many implicit meanings of a word we normally consider neutral may prevail. Specific distribution may also create unexpected additional colouring of a generally neutral word. Such stylistic connotation is called occasional.

I. V. Arnold presents these relations as a system of oppositions:

Structure : : norm : : individual use National norm : : dialect

Neutral style : : colloquial style : : bookish style Literary correct speech : : common colloquial

Literary colloquial style

Phonetic features

Standard pronunciation in compliance with the national norm, enunciation.

Phonetic compression of frequently used forms, e.g. it's, don't, Fve.

Omission of unaccented elements due to the quick tempo, e. g. you know him ?

Morphological features

Use of regular morphological features, with interception of evaluative suffixes e. g. deary, doggie, duckie.

Syntactical features

Use of simple sentences with a number of participial and infinitive constructions and numerous parentheses.

Syntactically correct utterances compliant with the literary norm.

Use of various types of syntactical compression, simplicity of syntactical connection.

Prevalence of active and finite verb forms.

Use of grammar forms for emphatic purposes, e. g. progressive verb forms to express emotions of irritation, anger etc.

Decomposition and ellipsis of sentences in a dialogue (easily reconstructed from the context).

Use of special colloquial phrases, e.g. that friend of yours. Lexical features

Wide range of vocabulary strata in accordance with the register of communication and participants' roles: formal and informal, neutral and bookish, terms and foreign words.

Basic stock of communicative vocabulary - stylistically neutral.

Use of socially accepted contracted forms and abbreviations, e. g. fridge for refrigerator, ice for ice-cream, TV for television, CD for compact disk, etc.

Use of etiquette language and conversational formulas, such as nice to see you, my pleasure, on behalf of, etc.

Extensive use of intensifiers and gap-fillers, e.g. absolutely, definitely, awfully, kind of, so to speak, I mean, if I may say so.

Use of interjections and exclamations, e. g. Dear me, My God, Goodness, well, why, now, oh.

Extensive use of phrasal verbs let sb down, put up with, stand sb up. Use of words of indefinite meaning like thing, stuff. Avoidance of slang, vulgarisms, dialect words, jargon. Use of phraseological expressions, idioms and figures of speech.

Compositional features

Can be used in written and spoken varieties: dialogue, monologue, personal letters, diaries, essays, articles, etc.

Prepared types of texts may have thought out and logical composition, to a certain extent determined by conventional forms (letters, presentations, articles, interviews).

Spontaneous types have a loose structure, relative coherence and uniformity of form and content.